Hacker attack disables Michael Savage website

The website for radio talk show host Michael Savage was forced to shut down for nearly an hour this morning as technical experts attempted to undo the work of a computer hacker, who had snuck into the webpage’s server and damaged the site.

Savage has also been highly critical of the U.K.’s recent release of the “Lockerbie Bomber,” Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, prompting the host’s speculation that the hacking of his site could be linked to the British government’s continued pattern of hostility toward him:

“Why on the day of the worldwide furor over the release of the Lockerbie Bomber by [British Prime Minister] Gordon Brown would Michael Savage’s website be hacked?” the radio host posited. “We cannot say who did this, but would it not be a possibility that the Brits themselves ordered this hack-attack?

“Why?” Savage asked WND. “Because the evidence that they placed me on this list with real murderers and terrorists was a political favor to some Islamic nation can be found in the recently discovered e-mails, hidden until now by the Gordon Brown government. Their own e-mail chain on banning Savage states, ‘There is no evidence of Savage advocating or inciting violence,’ yet, by including Savage on this banned list it would ‘help provide a balance of types of exclusion cases,’ in other words, the list would not only contain radical Muslims but also a white male conservative.”

The website’s repair crew told WND the hacker had broken in through a feedback portal, requiring the site to be shut down before any further damage was done. At roughly 11:15 a.m., the website was restored.

According to a London Daily Mail report, official correspondence, released under the United Kingdom’s Freedom of Information law, reveals that Savage’s name was placed on the list of people banned from Britain in order to provide “balance” to a “least wanted” list dominated by Muslim extremists, and the decision was made “at the highest level of government.”

“We will want to ensure that the names disclosed reflect the broad range of cases and are not all Islamic extremists,” reads a draft recommendation, marked “Restricted,” that was obtained as part of Savage’s libel lawsuit against the government and former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Referring to Savage by his birth name, one of the newly released e-mail messages, dated Nov. 27, 2008, from an unnamed Home Office official, says, “with Weiner, I can understand that disclosure of the decision would help provide a balance of types of exclusion cases.”

Savage had earlier accused Smith of having plucked his name out of a hat because he was “controversial and white.” These latest revelations add weight to Savage’s charge.

“It’s interesting to me that here I am a talk show host, who does not advocate violence, who advocates patriotic traditional values – borders, language, culture – who is now on a list banned in England,” Savage said. “What does that say about the government of England? It says more about them than it says about me.”

Among those included with Savage on the U.K. list are:

Samir al Quntar, a Lebanese terrorist who spent three decades in prison for smashing in the head of a 4-year-old Israeli girl in 1979. He also killed her father and caused the death of her mother and infant sister. The Home Office lists its reason for banning al Quntar as “engaging in unacceptable behavior by seeking to foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence” to provoke terrorist acts:

Nasr Javed, a leader of the Kashmiri militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba – “Army of the Pure.” The group has been accused of being involved in the bloodly November 2008 terror attack on Mumbai, India, that left over 170 people dead and over 300 wounded;

Erich Gliebe, chairman of the National Alliance, a large U.S. neo-Nazi group. Gliebe was accused of “justifying terrorist violence, provoking others to commit serious crime and fostering racial hatred”;

Russian skinheads Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, accused by the Home Office of being “leaders of a violent gang that beat migrants and posted films of their attacks on the Internet.”

On his website, Savage appealed to his listeners to contribute to his legal fund, which he has used for various efforts, including a lawsuit last year against the Council on American-Islamic Relations for waging a boycott using excerpts of his copyrighted remarks. In the case of Savage’s U.K. ban, however, CAIR has sided with Savage, arguing “freedom of speech is a two-way street.”